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The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

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The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

Trump: the worst possible candidate for president

The Channels Opinion Pages | STAFF COLUMN
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Sebastian Herics
Illustration

Donald Trump.

You’ve heard the name, whether it was a couple of years ago on The Apprentice, or his most recent bid for the White House.

When I heard Trump was running for office, I couldn’t help but to think it was a publicity stunt or a desperate cry for attention.

I mean, really? The man who attempted to trademark the phrase, “you’re fired,” and even gained notoriety from it, is trying to run for office.

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Then it hit me, he’s truly going to do this.

Trump: a real estate tycoon and successful businessman, with little to no knowledge or experience in politics or the military.

Still, I wasn’t completely opposed to the idea.

But because of his racist, sexist and xenophobic rhetoric, it didn’t take long for me to start seriously disliking him.

It also becomes hard to support a candidate whose own party continues to harshly criticize him and has even tried to block his nomination.

Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking GOP official, said that he could not yet “fully support” Trump. PolitiFact, a political fact checking website, fact checked 137 statements made by Trump over the course of his campaign. Of those statements, only 2 percent of them were found to be “true.” 42 percent were found to be “false,” and 19 percent of them, “Pants on Fire.”

The Donald, who claims to have the “world’s greatest memory,” seemed to have forgotten a key leader of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, who had publicly come out and endorsed Trump.

When asked about Duke by CNN’s Jake Tapper, and asked if he would repudiate Duke’s support, Trump claimed to have no recollection about the man Tapper was referring to.

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. Okay?” said Trump.

PolitiFact checked that statement and found it to be “pants on fire” false.

Trump has been quoted using Duke’s name numerous times from 1991-2000, even on the Larry King show, which aired on CNN.

“There’s more enthusiasm for Donald Trump among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political party he now controls,” said Mass. senator, Elizabeth Warren.

Trump supporters like to point to the fact that he is wealthy, and if he runs the country like he runs his businesses, then America will be, “great again.”

I disagree. In fact, Trump has filed for bankruptcy a whopping four times and has depended on multi-million dollar bailouts from big banks to keep some of his businesses afloat.

Trump also received a multi-million dollar inheritance from his father, which is why he has been able to make so many mistakes.

Trump would have had a net worth of $13 billion, had he just put his inheritance in a savings account and let it increase with interest. But instead he failed at many nonsensical business ventures, losing him billions along the way.

The Associated Press says Trump is, “a much more cautious businessman than he lets on.” It wrote, “he holds few stocks for someone of his wealth and has grown increasingly dependent on making money by lending out his name to others rather than developing real estate himself.”

Contrary to popular belief, I think Trump is a terrible businessman, and would be an even worse politician.

I don’t want someone so out of touch with reality, and the American people, to become the next leader of this nation.

We have not come this far as a society and a country to start mass deportations based on the color of one’s skin or which god you choose to believe in, and this is not a time to build a multi-billion dollar wall along our southern border, one much like the one that was demolished in Berlin.

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